[CAUT] Gradually improving voicing

[michelle stranges]

:o

WONDERFUL letter!

"psychologically based responses"- that's it!!! You're a genius!!

At my little SUNY college I am just now dealing with many more pianists 
than I was when I started here. Usually it's faculty members who have 
become used to our instruments and halls.
Now though, we're becoming more visible with new faculty members (YOUNGER 
than me!!) and the always popular visiting Jazz pianists-  on that note- 
let the comments FLY!!

:)
Michelle

--On Tuesday, January 11, 2005 8:17 AM -0700 Fred Sturm <fssturm@unm.edu> 
wrote:

> On 1/10/05 5:55 PM, "C. E. Hood" <hood@uwplatt.edu> wrote:
>
>> Let's look at this from the customer's point of view, just for fun.  I
>> call somebody in to fix, say, a funny feel to the handling of my car.
>> Brakes? steereing? shocks?  I hope they find out.  I get it back, and it
>> seems better maybe a little but not really.  But they obviously spent
>> time at it & seem to have run out of ideas.  So I say Yes it's better,
>> thanks, and let them off the hook - maybe I'll let it get worse & try
>> somebody else.
>>   So maybe we should try to pin down better what the ineffable problem
>>   is (or effinig problem) and actually deal with it.  I know piano
>> response is pretty subjective & it may be imaginary -
>>  Margaret
>
>     Yes, absolutely true. As much as we like to think of most pianists as
> hypochondriacs who don't know what the heck they are talking about (it's a
> natural defensive response to maintain our own sanity and self-esteem), I
> find that most pianists I work with only complain when they have a real
> issue. They may not articulate it well, or in a way that I can readily
> understand, but there is some truth there somewhere. For that matter, I
> may decide that what they want is "bad for the piano" (ie, will make it
> unacceptable to the majority of others) and decline to do it, or at any
> rate to go as far in a direction as they would like.
>     But I think the best policy is to take any criticism, even an off-hand
> one, seriously, and to assume that a large number of pianists are "too
> polite" to tell us what they really think. As hard as it is on the ego of
> the technician, one might well assume they think you aren't competent to
> do a better job, so they don't complain for fear you might make it worse.
>     Just some thoughts from the "other side of the coin." I certainly do
> find myself in situations where I "apply placebos" (pretend to understand
> and to "do something"), and I agree that there _is_ a tendency for the
> performing pianist to have a changeable opinion. The stress of
> performance, together with the need to adjust to a wide range of
> instruments is bound to elicit some strange "psychologically based"
> responses, and the process of adapting to the instrument is a very
> important part of the overall process. Most seasoned performers are the
> easiest customers to deal with, in my experience, because they have
> learned to be much more adaptable, and at a much quicker rate.
>
> Regards,
> Fred Sturm
> University of New Mexico
>
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